Palm Pre: The WIRED Review By Steven Levy

WIRED senior writer Steven Levy has spent the last few days with the Palm Pre and he is impressed with it. Despite a battery that sucks down as fast as the iPhone 3G and a keypad that forces you to type with your fingernails, the device is fantastic. Especially noteworthy is the WebOS platform that not only provides multitasking goodness for multiple apps, but works incredibly well with the 3.1-inch touchscreen. From Levy’s review:

Shaped like a small bar of shower soap, the dense, ebony Pre matches many (if not all) of the features of its chief competitor, the iPhone. But in one key aspect, the Pre does the iPhone one better. While a lot of the Pre’s features — a bright 3.1-inch touchscreen manipulated by taps, swipes and pinches; apps sold by third parties in an open online bazaar; integration of e-mail, contacts and calendar — are now standard in 3G smartphones, Palm also lets users keep multiple applications running simultaneously.

It’s a huge win. The Palm gets around the inherent difficulty of multitasking with a concept dubbed “cards” which work like windows on a regular computer. When browsing open apps or web pages, you swipe through the cards as if viewing photos. Tap on a card to use the app. The other apps are still active; your inbox still collects mail, web pages still update. Just as with your computer, you can stay constantly connected to Facebook, Twitter, IM and other online activities. Best of all, when you’re using an app and need something from another app, you don’t have to go through a tortuous process of closing, launching and reloading. When you’re navigating with Google Maps you can slide over to check a contact’s address, choose a podcast or answer an e-mail, and then return to Maps without losing a beat.

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